A male suspect is being sought after a robbery at Paris Jewellers in the Festival Marketplace Shopping Centre on Monday night.
Police say a man entered the store around 8:30 p.m., while the mall was still open, and smashed the glass counter containing gold and diamond jewelry.
He then took and undisclosed amount of jewelry before fleeing through the mall’s rear entrance into a field behind the mall heading eastbound.
Stratford Police Insp. Sam Theocharis says “Our 911 lines lit up like a Christmas tree as soon as this happened…This was a very deliberate act and as the individual came in, knew exactly what he wanted to do.”
Two employees were working at the time and say the suspect used a hammer break the glass. There were no injuries.
Police cordoned off the area but were unable to locate the suspect, “The track lasted for about half an hour and then we called off the track,” Theocharis says.
Local residents like Tammy Brown are upset by the incident, “I would love to be able to buy the moon for my son, you know, but I don’t have the money for it. I’m not going to be stupid enough to go rob a jewelry store.”
And she says she’ll be watching her two-year-old son more closely now.
The suspect is described as a white male around 25 to 35 years of age, 5’9” tall with a thin build and shoulder-length dirty blonde hair.
At the time of the robbery he was wearing a red, long-sleeve shirt, khaki shorts, sunglasses, a blue ball cap and was seen carrying a dark-coloured duffle bag.
Anyone with information is asked to contact police or Crime Stoppers.
